Adventure. Exploration. Fun.

Monthly Archives: July 2014

**We’ll hear more of Sundar Singh’s story next week, but this week, we have a special reminder to pray for the Sherpa people of Nepal.

Today in Sunday School, we learned about another group of people who live in the Himalayan mountains called the Sherpa. The Sherpa people are known for being kind, friendly, and welcoming of strangers. They are also known for helping people climb Mt. Everest. They cook for many of the mountain climbers, help guide them up the dangerous mountain, and carry much of the mountain climbers’ supplies.

Let’s imagine we are taking a trip up to the top of Mt. Everest. What sorts of dangers do we run into? Make a list of what you can think of.

Here’s what I wrote down: 1) it can get awfully dark up on the mountain at night 2) we can slip and fall 3) we can get very tired 4) we need someplace safe to make camp 5) we can get into dangerous places where we have to help each other 6) we have to trust each other because sometimes things don’t make sense and it feels like we are going the wrong way.

And you know what I realized? God helps us in all those ways. It’s true! Take a look at these verses and you’ll see what I mean. If you don’t have a Bible handy, check out www.biblegateway.com. God helps us …

1) When things look dark and hopeless

Psalm 119:105

2) When we feel like we’re slipping and falling

Psalm 94:18

3) When we’re tired and discouraged

Psalm 73:26

4) When we need someplace safe to rest

Psalm 31:3, 20

5) When we admit we need God’s help

Psalm 25:9

6) When life doesn’t make sense or seems unfair and we have questions for God

Psalm 73

I think if God helps us in all those ways, He wants us to help others in the same way. We can all be like the Sherpa guides and help people overcome whatever challenges they face. And, we start by asking God for His help and accepting His help. Then, we can ask Him how to help other people who need help. I’m going to go back through that list I made and write down ways I can help other people the way God has helped me. Give it a try and let me know what ideas you come up with!

“Dear God, please help the Sherpa people of Nepal. Just like they help so many people, please help them understand how much You want to help them and guide them. Help them understand that Jesus died to save them, so they can overcome every obstacle that comes their way, even death, just like Jesus did when He came back to life. Thank You. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.”

I’ve been thinking about Sundar all this week, wondering how—or if—he would ever be rescued. We found out this morning in Sunday School what happened. He spent three nights at the bottom of that awful, dirty, well. Then finally, he heard someone take the cover off the top. Whoever it was lowered a rope to him. He clung to it with the little bit of strength he had left. The stranger pulled him to safety, put the cover back on the well, and disappeared. Sundar never saw who it was.

Sundar crawled to some bushes, hid himself there, and fell asleep. Hours later, when he was strong enough, he cleaned up in a stream and washed his clothes. He was so thankful God had sent someone to rescue him, and he wondered what God wanted him to do next. As he prayed and waited, he realized God wanted him to go back to the same people who had thrown him in the well and tell them more about Him.

When Sundar appeared back in the village, the people were shocked. They thought he was dead. The leader grew very angry—someone had betrayed him and rescued Sundar. They arrested and questioned him again, but Sundar didn’t know who had saved him. The leader was furious—the traitor had to be punished. All of a sudden, one of the men realized there was only one key to the well, and it hung on the village leader’s belt. The leader knew he hadn’t rescued Sundar, and he hadn’t given the key to anyone else. The only answer was that the God Sundar served had real power.

That scared the village leader very much, and he ordered Sundar to leave his town and never come back. Sundar left and continued preaching until it was time to leave again for India. But it would not be Sundar’s last journey to Tibet. A few months later, he would cross the mountains to preach once again.

“Dear God, please help us be brave and trust You no matter what. Thank You that You are stronger than anyone and anything else and that You will never ever leave us. In Jesus’ Name I pray. Amen.”

Finally, it was time to find out at Sunday School what happened to the man who was caught telling people about Jesus!

The religious leader ordered that his assistant be beaten very, very badly. When the men were done, they threw him outside on a pile of garbage to die. But that’s not what happened. God made him strong enough to crawl off of the garbage pile and get away. After his body had healed from the beating, he did something no one could have expected. He went back into the town that had tried to kill him. The people were so scared—they knew there had to be a reason that he hadn’t died like he was supposed to, but they didn’t understand who or what could have healed him. So, they decided to stay out of his way. He was allowed to keep traveling and telling people about Jesus.

Sundar was amazed by the story and asked the visitor if he knew how Sundar could meet him. The man announced—it was him! He showed Sundar and Tarnyed Ali that he still had Kartar’s Bible with the verse written inside of it. They talked and prayed together all that night. The next day, Sundar and Tarnyed Ali began walking back to the missionaries’ village where Sundar and Tarnyed Ali had met. When they reached it, Sundar left him with the missionaries and began walking again.

He met another man named Susil, who convinced Sundar that he needed to go to college. Sundar went for a little while, but he didn’t like it. He knew that was not where God was calling him to be. Soon, Sundar was back on the trail that would lead him to Tibet once again. One day, when the people of a village got angry with him for preaching about Jesus, they told him to leave. Sundar asked a woman which way he should go, and the woman told him. Sundar started walking that way, but a few hours later, he realized the woman had lied to him. There were no more villages in the direction she’d told him. There was just the trail he was walking on and a dead end at the edge of a huge, icy river. He could not get across.

Sundar collapsed. He didn’t know what to do. The people of the village behind him didn’t want to listen to him, and there was no way to get across the river. He felt like no one on earth cared if he lived or died. He prayed and cried, and the next time he looked up, he saw a man on the other side of the river. The man was sitting by a warm fire. As Sundar watched, the man stood up and stepped into the icy river. The water was freezing and it was moving so fast, but the man didn’t slow down. He kept walking across the river. The cold water grew higher and higher until it was up to his shoulders. The man stepped out of the river and told Sundar to climb up and sit on his shoulders. He reached out his hand and pulled Sundar up. Then he went back into the river. When they reached the other side, he helped Sundar down. Sundar closed his eyes to pray, and when he opened them again, the man was gone. There was nowhere the man could have gone so quickly. Sundar knew that God had sent him to help and to let Sundar know that he was not alone after all. God never forgot about him, and He always cared about what happened to him.

Sundar traveled further into Tibet, but he found that many people didn’t want to hear about Jesus. Then, in one town, the people did listen. They asked questions and let Sundar answer—until their religious leaders showed up. The leaders told them not to listen to Sundar, and the people started yelling at Sundar. They arrested him and took him to their chief religious officer. He was accused of preaching a different religion. Sundar could not deny it; the reason he had come to Tibet was to tell people about Jesus. The leader sentenced him to die. They took Sundar and threw him into a dirty, filthy, well. Then they left him there.

One day went by and then another. Sundar wanted to give up. God hadn’t sent someone to carry him out of this awful place, like He had back at the river, and he didn’t know why. What if this was the last village he ever got to tell about Jesus?

“Dear God, please help us to trust You always, even when things are terrible and we want to give up. Please help us remember that You always have a plan, even when we cannot see it. You promised in Romans 8:28 that You work good out of every situation, no matter how awful. Even when Jesus died on the cross, You had a plan. You knew He would come back to life and save everyone who trusts Him. Help us trust You today. Thank You. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.”

This morning, our Sunday School teacher told us what happened to the man who hit Sundar in the head with a rock. Sundar knew the men thought he would be angry and wish for something bad to happen to them, but he knew that wasn’t the right thing to do. Instead, he prayed and asked God to forgive them and then he washed his face and sat down to wait for the blood to stop running from his head. Not much later, the man who had thrown the rock at Sundar fell to the ground. He had the worst headache he had ever had! Sundar knew that everyone would think it was because Sundar had wished something bad to happen to him, so he decided to do something the men would not expect. He went over to where the farmers were working and started doing the other man’s job. He worked alongside of them the rest of the day.

When the day was over, the man who had hurt Sundar invited him to his house. He brought all of the farmers together and Sundar got to tell them about Jesus. The next day, Sundar started on his way to another village, but the man told him to please come back and tell him more the next time he was traveling that way.

Sundar kept walking; he knew God was calling him to preach in Tibet. He met some missionaries in a village who started teaching him the Tibetan language, but it was a hard language, and Sundar knew it would be very difficult for him to learn enough of it to preach to the people. He was so happy when the missionaries decided that another man names Tarnyed Ali who translated for them should go with Sundar on his journey. Together, Sundar and Tarnyed Ali set off for Tibet.

The people in the next village they reached were not happy to hear about God at all. They were angry. They would not let them stay, and they even chased them out of their towns. One night when Sundar and Tarnyed Ali needed someplace to sleep, they found a little hut that appeared to be empty. It didn’t look like anyone was living there, so they went inside for shelter. Not long after they started to settle in, a man appeared at the door. Sundar thought this man must own the house and he quickly apologized. The man explained that the house was abandoned; he just stopped for a rest and some shelter sometimes while he was traveling, just like Sundar and Tarnyed Ali were doing. They all sat together around the fire and began to talk. Sundar hoped he could tell him about Jesus.

The man said his name was Norbu. He told them he had known another man who used to be a Sikh and had left his family and everything he had to follow Jesus and tell others about Him. His name was Kartar, and just like Sundar, he traveled from village to village. Many people didn’t want to listen to him and chased him from their villages. In one village, they arrested him and sentenced him to die. They treated him terribly and he suffered a great deal, but no matter what they did, Kartar kept praying and singing to God. He wanted to use every last breath to tell people about how much Jesus loved them. Just before he died, he wrote a verse in the front of his Bible. Later that day, he died.

But because of the way Kartar had died, not afraid and not wanting revenge on the people who were hurting him, the personal assistant of the leading religious man in the village—the leader who had sentenced Kartar to die—took the Bible and started to read it. Then he started telling others about Jesus. The religious leader was so angry! Killing Kartar was supposed to end all this talk about Jesus, but instead more people wanted to hear. When he found out it was his own assistant who was spreading the truth about God, he was really angry!

We have to wait until next week to find out what happened to the man!

“Dear God, please help us to have good friends who love You and want to obey You, like Sundar did. Just like he and Samuel traveled together for a while, and Sundar and Tarnyed Ali walked and preached together, please help us to see the friends You have sent to us and please help us to be a true friend to them and to others. Thank You. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.”